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He held the power of life after the world's end!

In four days the world was coming to an end! The exploding sun would burn every living thing on Earth to a cinder! In Simsville, it was Bill Easson who got the job of picking those fit to escape. He had to choose ten people — men, women, or children — out of its desperate, hysterical three thousand.

Whom should he pick — the beautiful, the bold, or the clever?

Did they really have a chance to reach a new world in the rickety, jerry-built, inadequate space boat that would be given them?

Would cold and hostile Mars welcome them?

J.T. McIntosh's unforgettable novel has been rightly called one of the best science-fiction stories ever to appear.